Richard Penniman, better known as Little Richard, who combined thesacred shouts of the black church and the profane sounds of the blues tocreate some of the world’s first and most influential rock ’n’ rollrecords, died on Saturday morning. He was 87.

His death was confirmed by his son, Danny Penniman. He did not say wherehis father died or specify a cause.

Little Richard did not invent rock ’n’ roll. Other musicians had alreadybeen mining a similar vein by the time he recorded his first hit, “TuttiFrutti” — a raucous song about sex, its lyrics cleaned up but itsmeaning hard to miss — in a New Orleans recording studio in September1955. Chuck Berry and Fats Domino had reached the pop Top 10, Bo Diddleyhad topped the rhythm-and-blues charts, and Elvis Presley had beenmaking records for a year.

But Little Richard, delving deeply into the wellsprings of gospel musicand the blues, pounding the piano furiously and screaming as if for hisvery life, raised the energy level several notches and created somethingnot quite like any music that had been heard before — something new,thrilling and more than a little dangerous. As the rock historian RichieUnterberger put it, “He was crucial in upping the voltage fromhigh-powered R&B into the similar, yet different, guise of rock ’n’ roll.”